November 1956, 50 years ago, was a month the drama of which many of us can yet recall. It was a defining moment of the Cold War.

This was the month Eisenhower was reelected in a landslide and in which he laid down, in simultaneous crises, the new ground rules of the Cold War, both to our NATO allies and Soviet adversaries. On Oct. 29, in a strategic thrust of which Ike had not been informed, Israel launched a preemptive strike on Egypt, seizing the Sinai. Israel then called on Britain and France to come in and separate the armies and occupy the Canal that Egypt's Gamal Abdel-Nasser had nationalized.

British and French troops moved on Suez. Nasser railed against Western aggression, and Nikita Khrushchev rattled his rockets and threatened to rain them down on London. "I know Ike. He will lie doggo," Harold Macmillan had assured British Prime Minister Anthony Eden.

Like many Brits, Macmillan had misread his man.

An angry Ike ordered the French and British out of Suez, threatened to sink the pound if the Brits did not depart and told David Ben-Gurion to get his troops off the Sinai or face U.S. sanctions.

This is the enigma that was Eisenhower. His passion seemed non-existent. While condemning British imperialism in the Middle East, he supported and then took over imperialistic endeavors in Southeast Asia, most notably Vietnam. Many lay the blame for Vietnam at Johnson’s feet while forgetting the first commitment of “advisors” came from Eisenhower. JFK was getting ready to remove our people from Vietnam as a follow up to the Diem assassination. It was Johnson that reversed this course, something that always made me wonder if LBJ was involved with the JFK assassination.

_________________“I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a Democrat.”-Will Rogers

I have a collection of books about JFK and his administration. I picked up Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye the other day at a used bookstore to add to it. As I'd read before, Kennedy wanted to pull the US out of Vietnam gradually. His order to remove the first thousand troops was in effect on the day of his death. This book also contained the passage about how that order was "quietly rescended."

However, I believe some of those men did come home as a result of Kennedy's order...correct me if I'm wrong.

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"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman